Things to Come (1936)

Edward Chapman: Pippa Passworthy, Raymond Passworthy

Quotes 

• Oswald Cabal : There! There they go. That faint beam of light.

  Raymond Passworthy : I feel that what we've done is monstrous.

  Oswald Cabal : What they've done is magnificent.

  Raymond Passworthy : Will they come back?

  Oswald Cabal : Yes, and go again and again, until a landing is made and the moon is conquered. This is only a beginning.

  Raymond Passworthy : And if they don't come back? My son and your daughter. What of that, Cabal?

  Oswald Cabal : Then presently, others will go.

  Raymond Passworthy : Oh, God, is there never to be any age of happiness? Is there never to be any rest?

  Oswald Cabal : Rest enough for the individual man. Too much and too soon, and we call it death. But for Man, no rest and no ending. He must go on, conquest beyond conquest. First this little planet and its winds and ways. And then all the laws of mind and matter that restrain him. Then the planets about him... and at last, out across immensity to the stars. And when he has conquered all the deeps of Space, and all the mysteries of Time, still he will be beginning.

  Raymond Passworthy : But we're such little creatures. Poor humanity's so fragile, so weak. Little... little animals.

  Oswald Cabal : Little animals. And if we're no more than animals, then we must snatch each little scrap of happiness, and live and suffer and pass, mattering no more than all the other animals do or have done. It is this, or that - all the Universe or nothingness! Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?